National Association of Resident Doctors of Nigeria, NARD, yesterday, in Ibadan, warned that it will not hesitate to ground the health sector nationwide if the eight states owing her members backlog of salaries and other entitlements failed to pay them within the next two weeks.
The National President of the NARD, Dr. Dan-Jumbo Prince, who led other members of national executive to the Oyo State made the declaration in Ibadan while addressing Journalists at state’s Secretariat of the Nigeria Medical Association yesterday.
The states alleged to be owing the resident doctors includes Abia (12 months), Benue (6 months),Kogi (4 months ),Oyo (6 months),Osun (8 months), Rivers (4 months), Plateau (4months) and Lagos (2 months).
It would be recalled that NARD executives had stormed Oyo state where they visited Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, LAUTEC, Ogbomoso where they met their members there to appraise situation on ground.
The executives were not only miffed with the situation at the teaching hospital, they were equally sad that their members at the hospital were being owed six months salary by the state government despite the fact that they had never gone on strike. The situation with resident doctors at LAUTEC led to the general appraisal of experiences of resident doctors in other states of federation, which led to the NARD’s two weeks deadline given to the state owing its members to pay them.
Dr. Dan-Jumbo Prince who addressed Journalists un behave of the NARD executives, , said they were disappointed with state of decay in the hospital (LTH), the development which they maintained could not assist the hospital to deliver quality health to the people and assist in the training of future doctors.
The NARD executives were miffed that their efforts at meeting Oyo State governor over the plight of their members at the hospital and the general condition of the hospital have not materialised, declaring, ”The governor has made himself unavailable.”
The NARD National President equally declared his members views on the LTH thus, ”How does the Oyo state government expect us to deliver safe, quality and effective healthcare to the people of Oyo State and its environs in the face of this hardship.
“How can we explain the situation where only LTH, Ogbomoso is not paid salary since the beginning of this year, while other civil servants in the state employment have collected salary? We are forced to believe that Oyo state government is deliberately and systematically killing LTH, Ogbomoso.”
All efforts at getting comments from Oyo state government by the time of filing this report were still futile .